02 February 2012

Groundhog Day / The Eternal Return

Forget Bill Murray. This F.N. thought up:

The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

I find this to be a satisfying way of measuring the gap between what is and what I happen to cook up as a result of attachment to self. As long as I am taking exception to things, I am secretly pining for this moment never to return again, for it to be different next time, were there a next time. On the other hand, as long as things and I are not two, I could will this again and again and yet again. There is, literally, nothing else to wish for.

There's danger in the word, "craving," here, and I know that. But what if it was just a simple, straightforward, "Yes, just this," instead, both now and forever ever?